Quotes about History

“Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.”

“The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.”

“If some countries have too much history, we have too much geography.”

“Civilization is a movement and not a condition, a voyage and not a harbor.”

“We must never forget that Black History is American History. The achievements of African Americans have contributed to our nation's greatness.”

“Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.”

“History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them.”

“The fleet sailed to its war base in the North Sea, headed not so much for some rendezvous with glory as for rendezvous with discretion.”

“I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.”

“September 11th was a moment when America had the sympathy of the world.”

“The question I'm always asking myself is: are we masters or victims? Do we make history, or does history make us? Do we shape the world, or are we just shaped by it? The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events is, I think, a great question, and one that I have always tried to ask.”

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

“The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.”

“I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

“The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is a defence. Through this we can build, we must build, a defence against repetition.”

“There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible that in any profane history.”

“All history is incomprehensible without Christ.”

“I have always had a keen interest in defence and military history and read more on this subject than anything else.”

“In the early days of aviation, there was a great deal of experimentation and a high death rate.”

“I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is.”

“When I was a boy, I would ask about my family history, about my bloodlines. We really didn't know that much. We had a little Indian in us from the Oklahoma Trail of Tears.”